Filter Articles

The Greens have secured an Australian-first register of foreign owned water entitlements, in agreeing to support government legislation that gives the Foreign Investment Review Board greater scope to check if sales of Australian land to overseas buyers is in the national interest.

The Australian Greens say Tony Abbott is trying to burn up important protections in his so-called regulation bonfire.

"When Tony Abbott has a bonfire of regulations he hides his true agenda in the smoke," Greens Leader Christine Milne said.

"The Prime Minister's rhetoric on this repeal day is all about storytelling and hiding help for his mates. Many of these changes are routine review of redundant regulations, but there are some very bitter pills.

The current Murray Darling Basin Plan will not save our nation’s most important river system, despite the Government’s spin, the Australian Greens said today.

“The Government have done a dirty deal with the Coalition and now we’re left with a Plan that supports the big irrigators and not the environment,” the Greens’ Murray Darling spokesperson, Senator Sarah Hanson-Young said.

“We must be clear, this Plan will not save the river and that is why Barnaby Joyce is so eager to support Tony Burke and his environmentally reckless package.

With the nation’s most important river system on the line, it is crucial that we get the Murray Darling Basin Plan right and therefore more needs to be done to strengthen the environmental protections of the Water Act, the Australian Greens said today.

“I will be moving to amend the Water Act tomorrow to create the environmental protections that are lacking from the current Basin Plan, and that the river so desperately needs to survive,” the Greens’ Murray Darling spokesperson, Senator Sarah Hanson-Young said.

The Australian Greens will be moving to improve the inadequate Plan that was revealed by Tony Burke today.

“This is a Plan for big irrigators and not the environment,” the Greens Murray Darling spokesperson, Senator Sarah Hanson-Young said.

“It is disappointing that the Government has decided to do a deal with the Coalition and upstream irrigators rather than taking the opportunity to work with the Greens and save the river from environmental collapse.

The Greens have said today that Barnaby Joyce is a danger to the river and the Government is at real risk of locking in environmental failure if it weakens the Murray Darling Basin Plan at the demand of the Coalition.